Twitter Renews War With Google Over 'Search Plus Your World'

Twitter Bemused With Google+ Data Dominance on SERPs

A couple of days back, Google introduced its latest search engine feature called 'Search Plus Your World,' which will be rolling out on Google.com over the next few days. Search plus your world will bring personal results, like People, Pages, and Profiles largely from the Google+ network, are also fully integrated in into the SERPs and can be accessed at the click of the personalization icon that it has setup in the search page. Using the new feature, it has been noticed that the Google+ posts sometimes outrank even the original content to which it refers and limits personalized results to those from within the user’s network, including content shared privately with the signed in user. Invariably, these results are from their Google+ network, not Facebook or Twitter which other social media players feel is Google's way of promoting its social platform.

Amit Singhal had this to inform Search Engine Land: "Facebook and Twitter and other services, basically, their terms of service don’t allow us to crawl them deeply and store things. Google+ is the only [network] that provides such a persistent service. Of course, going forward, if others were willing to change, we’d look at designing things to see how it would work." The following are some of the changes you would find through introduction of the Search Plus Your World.

1. Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page; 2. Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following; and, 3. People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community.

Google+ posts and private photos, are already secured by SSL encryption on Google+, and now the results page has been upgraded to the same level of security and privacy protection. When you’re signed in to Google, your search results, including your private content are protected by the same high standards of encryption as your messages in Gmail.

Soon enough, Twitter criticized Google claiming the new search feature is "bad" for users, since it make it harder to find information. Twitter, in a statement said Google's new enhancements wouldn't help web users when it came to providing real-time, personalized information within its search results.

Twitter's statement read, "Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information. As we've seen time again, news breaks first on Twitter. As a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant (search) results. We're concerned that, as a result of Google's changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that's bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users." Alex Macgillivray, Twitter's General Counsel for Policy, Trust & Safety, tweeted that the Google update was a "bad day for the internet", as it would "warp" searches.

However, in a statement, Google expressed surprise on Twitters comments saying, "We are a bit surprised by Twitter's comments about Search plus Your World, because it chose not to renew its agreement with us last summer, and since then we have observed their rel=nofollow instructions," after Twitter had called off the deal between the two firms that allowed Google to index Twitter messages within searches. The new set of Twitter VS Google comments only adds more heat to the already escalating battle for dominance in the social market. Responding to questions from Marketing Land, Eric Schmidt pointed out that Google+ content is not begin treated more favorably than Twitter or Facebook while taking a dig at both saying that if they wanted to perform better in the search results that they should grant Google permission to access their content and data. This has not only opened up a new perspective in the search giants focus on making Google+ as big as Facebook or even better, but also intends to level the playing field sooner by gaining access to Twitter and Facebook data. Don't you think so?

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Lazarus Rankish Hunt

Hi … I am Ranki, a Journo by profession now enjoying a free fall into the future of SEO. Writing is a flow of my being, an extension of the self that is unstoppable, even if it isn’t embraced, embalmed and mummified by recognition. I am here to enjoy the ride, since I have no fixed date with destiny. I Manage Media and Strategize Content at Submitinme. I fill up spaces on pages with the feeling that I am shouting from the roof tops for the Eared crowd to hear and find the latest break-outs in the field. There could be more or less of me, if you care to .... more info